Wow. All I did was post in the noob forum and I'm learning cool stuff already!

I've seen one of those "scaffold" mills in action and they are very innovative. They still always look too fragile and spindly to me though. I'm always amazed that they work at all, leave alone produce results as stunning as skilled sawmen regularly produce with them. The great thing about them is that the size of what you can cut is really only limited by your ambition. You could mill a damn Redwood with one of those things if you really wanted to.

I enjoyed the miniOnken gallery and a lot of other pics I'm finding around here besides. However there is one puzzling trend I've noticed. I see tons of people using vented box designs, but everyone always seems to build the vent into the box via carpentry rather than use some kind of port tube. Any reason for this other than cost?

Very impressive I must say! I myself have some experience with chainsaws and cutting down big trees but I haven't made planks of them, only firewood. By the way, that's a damn big chainsaw!

As I might have said before, it's always interesting watching a professional do his job that an ordinary person would have no chance at all doing.

Haha, we are far away from professionals, but we muddle through somehow.

We do have a couple of serious saws. The biggest is a STIHL 084. The model number tells you how many cc's of displacement it has. Its like someone took a fairly substantial dirt bike motor and then stuck it on the end of a handle!

If you can believe it our smaller saw, the 066, can actually cut circles around the 084. The 084 has lots of grunt, but low RPMs and therefore low chain speed. The 066 is a real screamer and can cut pretty much anything the 084 can. It is so competent that we will soon be cleaning up the 084 and putting it on eBay because there is just no need for it.

We also have a STIHL 044 which is our meanest saw. It has been extensively modified with a bigger piston and cylinder, dual-port exhaust, a re-jetted carb and a thorough port/polish job. It feels very nearly as powerful as the 066 to use, but weighs far less. It runs rich at idle, but as soon as you open the throttle and bury it in a log all is well.

Wow. All I did was post in the noob forum and I'm learning cool stuff already!

However there is one puzzling trend I've noticed. I see tons of people using vented box designs, but everyone always seems to build the vent into the box via carpentry rather than use some kind of port tube. Any reason for this other than cost?

you will find most of those that you are seeing are more than ports, rather folded horns. They are not just a flared opening, but rather tend to curl around inside to make the port much longer than is achievable going front to back. this way they are able to produce much lower frequencies than typically possible even with reflex designs.

so you can with some effort get pretty decent extension with a fullrange driver

this effect can be taken to extremes for massive Dub-horn or Tapped Horn speakers built into floors that fold the horn many times and are capable of 'the brown note'

With your skills and access to materials you would have good fun with the TH-18 project here on the forum, extensive thread, good measurements

Haha, we are far away from professionals, but we muddle through somehow.

We do have a couple of serious saws. The biggest is a STIHL 084. The model number tells you how many cc's of displacement it has. Its like someone took a fairly substantial dirt bike motor and then stuck it on the end of a handle!

If you can believe it our smaller saw, the 066, can actually cut circles around the 084. The 084 has lots of grunt, but low RPMs and therefore low chain speed. The 066 is a real screamer and can cut pretty much anything the 084 can. It is so competent that we will soon be cleaning up the 084 and putting it on eBay because there is just no need for it.

We also have a STIHL 044 which is our meanest saw. It has been extensively modified with a bigger piston and cylinder, dual-port exhaust, a re-jetted carb and a thorough port/polish job. It feels very nearly as powerful as the 066 to use, but weighs far less. It runs rich at idle, but as soon as you open the throttle and bury it in a log all is well.

Wow, that's some big engines! I myself have a 45cc old Swedish Jonsered chainsaw, it's from the 70's and in pretty bad shape so you can't runt it too hard for too long unless you want the fuel to start boiling (happened once actually). Dad has a newer Husqvarna 445 (4-series 45cc engine) and it has some kind of turbo and it runs way better than my old one, and it weighs only about half as much too.

Speaking of big trees. This is by my summer house. We had to call in professionals for this tree. It's one of the biggest trees I've seen in this part of Sweden and it was close to four houses as well so it had to be taken down perfectly to avoid smashing something to pieces.http://i.imgur.com/ktef5.jpg
It may not look very big but if I remember correctly it measured around 75cm diagonally. But I suppose this is nothing compared to the monster trees you have over there in America